The work on the International Space Station dominated the news this past week.
The astronauts on-board Atlantis conducted four space walks, two this week, to attach the S0 Truss to the station.
Their activities culminated in the landing of Atlantis at Kennedy Space Center.
Other news includes the launch of an Ariane 4 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

Frontier Status has returned to intermittent publication, new issues will continue to be published as time and tide allow.

Endeavour

The Shuttle Endeavour is being prepared for roll-over to the Vehicle Assembly building to be mated with its External Tank / SRBs assembly.
During the week, managers moved the launch date up a day.
Endeavour is now slated for launch on May 30 with a logistical support mission to the ISS.
STS-11 will deliver a variety of equipment and supplies in a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (NASA).

Columbia

Columbia is in the Orbiter Processing Facility being prepared for STS-107, a SpaceHab / Freestar research flight.
This past week, the flight was pushed back to July 19 to allow additional processing time (NASA).

Discovery

The Shuttle Discovery is in temporary storage in the Vehicle Assembly Building (NASA)

ISS

Third Spacewalk

On April 14, astronauts Steven Smith and Rex Walheim conducted a six-hour, 27-minute space walk out of the International Space Station's Quest airlock.
During the walk, the pair rewired the Station's Canadarm-2 so that it would derive its power from the S0 Truss.
They also removed launch locks from the front of the Truss.
The only task left uncompleted was the installation of a 4.25 m ladder to connect the Quest airlock to the S0 Truss.
This will be installed on the 4th spacewalk (Spaceflight Now; NASA;
Space Daily.com< /a>).

LAUNCHES

Ariane 4 / NSS-7

On April 16, at 7:02 p.m. EDT, an Ariane 44L rocket was launched from Kourou, French Guiana.
The rocket on flight 150, carried the 4,700 kg Lockheed Martin-built NSS-7 satellite for New Skies Satellites of The Hague, The Netherlands.
The satellite was released into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit by the rocket's third stage.
The satellite will eventually be place in the 21.5 degrees West Longitude orbital slot where it will provide commercial communications services.
It will replace the aging NSS-K satellite, which was launched in 1992.
The satellite is a hybrid C-band / Ku-band satellite with 36 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders.
It is expected to have a service life of 12 years.
This was the 111th Ariane 4 flight (Arianespace PR;
Spaceflight Now;
Space.com;
NewSkies;
Space Daily.com).

LAUNCH SYSTEMS

Delta II / Aqua

In preparation for its May 2 launch, the Earth Observing System Aqua Observatory (Aqua) was moved to Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg AFB and attached to the top of a Delta II rocket (NASA).

Delta II / GPS

A planned launch of the GPS 2R-8 mission slated for May 8 has been delayed for at least a month as managers review the installation of a new self-destruct system in the Delta II rocket to be used to launch the satellite.
Work on a new configuration for the Delta 2 using Delta 3 developed strap on solid rocket motor uncovered a scenario that the new system was not designed to cover.
While the complex series of events in the scenario are extremely unlikely, managers are using the time to assess the risk and implement changes.
The upgraded self-destruct system will first fly on the May 2 Aqua mission (
Spaceflight Now).

Christmas Island

Australia's plans to build a detention center for asylum-seekers on Christmas Island, has Russia worried that the center will jeopardize security at their planned launch facility on the island.
Russia and Australia signed an agreement in May, 2001, to build the Asia Pacific Space Centre on Christmas Island using Russian technology and Australian infrastructure.
Project managers hope to have the Centre development at a stage for two tests next year.
Christmas Island is 1,500 km west of Australia (AFP).

TECHNOLOGY

Hydrogen

In an effort to save the cost of transporting 300,000 pounds of hydrogen fuel from near New Orleans to Kennedy Space Center for every Shuttle launch, NASA has recently awarded a group of Florida Universities $8.1 million in grants.
The Universities will study ways of manufacturing and storing the large amounts of hydrogen needed to fuel the Shuttle and top off the tanks as the hydrogen boils away.
Research will also concentrate on ways of making the gas that do not produce carbon dioxide as a by-product.
The Glenn Research Center, near Cleveland, Ohio, granted bout $5.4 million to University of Central Florida and $2.7 to University of Florida.
The research will focus in on economic, yet environmentally-friendly technologies ranging from solar energy, lasers to electricity to create the fuel from water (UniSci).

Reaction Control

Marshall Space Flight Center has returned to the rocket engine test business with the testing of reaction control system rockets as part of Space Launch Initiative preliminary research.
The rockets under test were provided by TRW and were powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.
More than 30 tests were performed as part of the $15.5 million TRW contract.
The new motors combine functions of two different systems currently used on the Shuttle, the reaction-control system and the orbital maneuvering system.
The system will also be cheaper to maintain and safer to operate.
TRW and Aerojet, who was awarded a similar $7.6 million contract will continue to work and refine their new thruster systems for the next two years (Huntsville Times).

LEGISLATION

Satellite Broadband

On April 18, the FCC adopted a new stance on licensing shared Ku-band satellite systems.
The new Report and Order will allow non-geostationary satellites communicating with fixed satellite receivers on earth to share frequencies with geostationary satellites in the 10.7 to 14.5 GHz range.
When the non-fixed satellites pass in a direct line between fixed satellites and receivers then a sharing method involving splitting the spectrum will be used for the duration of the event.
A new Rulemaking also limits the total power fixed satellite can emit on the Ku-band.
There are currently seven applications pending for non-geostationary satellite services (Media-News).

EXPLORATION

Pluto

For political and time-management reasons, the proposed mission to Pluto to study its atmosphere now appears to be canceled.
The mission is said to be out of favor with the current White House and NASA officials stated that it is highly unlikely that the mission will be ready to be launched by 2006.
The mission did not get the $122 million need in the next fiscal year to begin the development in earnest.
Ultimately, the mission will require $500 million.
The mission needs to be launched by 2006 so that it can arrive at Pluto before the receding planet's atmosphere freezes.
Another problem with the mission is the use of plutonium fuel source to power the craft is controversial (L.A. Times).

Stardust

On April 18, the Stardust explorer set a new record for reaching a point farther from the sun than any other solar-powered spacecraft in history.
Launched on February 7, 1999, Stardust is now 407 million km from the sun, well beyond the orbit of Mars.
The spacecraft has a date with comet Wild 2 on January 2, 2004, where it will collect samples during a fly-by.
If all goes well, the spacecraft will return the samples to Earth in January of 2006.
Stardust is now at its furthest point from the Sun and will now begin to track inward on its elliptical solar orbit (Leonard David, Space.com).

INTERNET IN THE SKY

Spacenet

Telesat has selected Spacenet Inc. to provide VSAT satellite communications equipment to operate Telesat's new High Speed Internet Service.
The service will be available in 13 Canadian provinces and territories as well as the US.
The arrangement revolves around Gilat 260E VSAT technology.
Spacenet is s subsidiary of Gilat (Gilat Satellite PR).

MILITARY

Space Pollution

In a NewScientist article Joel Primack of the University of California at Santa Cruz stated that US missile defense system could make low-Earth space unusable.
Primack contends that US interceptors destroying warheads in space would create swarms of debris.
The US military contends that neither the missiles nor the interceptors are traveling at orbital velocity at the time of impact.
Primack also contends that the debris would be permanent, belying the physics of atmospheric drag, which brings down objects in LEO relatively quickly (New Scientist).

FRONTIER CENSUS REPORT

With the landing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis on April 8, the space population returned to baseline of three.
two American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut on the International Space Station.
Thus far in 2002, humans have spent 491.75 man days in orbit.
This marks the completion of 527 days of continuous occupation of the International Space Station beginning on November 2, 2000.
ISS has been in orbit for 1,239 days.
http://space flight.nasa.gov/station/index.html